Slashdot Mirror
Forbes Goes After Bloggers
walterbyrd writes "In a recent article, Forbes bashes bloggers big time (forbesdontbug/forbesdontbug)." From the article: "Blogs started a few years ago as a simple way for people to keep online diaries. Suddenly they are the ultimate vehicle for brand-bashing, personal attacks, political extremism and smear campaigns. It's not easy to fight back: Often a bashing victim can't even figure out who his attacker is. No target is too mighty, or too obscure, for this new and virulent strain of oratory. Microsoft has been hammered by bloggers; so have CBS, CNN and ABC News, two research boutiques that criticized IBM's Notes software, the maker of Kryptonite bike locks, a Virginia congressman outed as a homosexual and dozens of other victims--even a right-wing blogger who dared defend a blog-mob scapegoat. " BoingBoing has a long post about the article.
CBS, CNN and ABC News: Big media are lap dogs to the powers that be. To afraid to really speak out for fear of harming revenue, stock value, etc.
IBM's Notes software: If you make software, someone, somewhere will complain.
Kryptonite bike locks: The best bike lock in the world, picked in seconds with a BIC pen.
The most effective defense against being slagged in blogs is to take the charm offensive. Be open and honest. If you've done wrong apologies and move on. Strip their legs out from under them. A harsh retort is more likely to get them a larger audience.
"Ackthpt is t3h rat basturd!1"
Yes, I'm afraid I am. Sorry, I'll try to do better next time. If I had $5, I would most certainly mail it to Happy Guy, 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield, USA
I wonder if anyone's started a blog critising AMD for eating Intel's lunch.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
...for providing the username/password. =)
I shudder everytime I get called into a senior exec's office and he's got a copy of the Forbes Christmas tech guide on his desk.
"Says here that everyone is going to ARCnet. Why aren't we?"
Grrrrrrrumble.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Hmmm, have to register to read the article, I hate that.
But, from the slashdot summary, ..., Microsoft has been
hammered by bloggers; so have CBS, CNN and ABC News, two research
boutiques that criticized IBM's Notes software, the maker of Kryptonite
bike locks, a Virginia congressman outed as a homosexual and dozens of
other victims--even a right-wing blogger who dared defend a blog-mob
scapegoat...,
As with all sea changes in communications comes (especially early on) a high noise to signal ratio. Hopefully reasonable readers apply reasonable filters to what they read.
There may be incendiary posts, unnecessary posts, and inappropriate post (including but not limited to trolling, flaming, and slander), but in the collective body of blogs are useful nuggets worth mining. Vendors, companies, and individuals benefit if they choose by tuning in to this.
The evolution of airing a complaint has evolved from snail mail (good luck), to phone calls (good luck), and with the internet, to "Contact Us" (hmmm, good luck). None of these in my experience have been as effective as I prefer because the receiving complainant can easily ignore the missives as so much whining, and invisible that they don't have to be responsive.
Not all ignore complaints, pleas for help, etc. Notably (and I'm only picking a couple) I've always received timely and helpful replies from Amazon.com and Thumbnails Plus . These are only two examples, I could cite more.
But with the volume raised, the signal amplified with the more public blogosphere I've seen signs there can be positive outcomes. Again, while some posts are inflammatory only, valid complaints about activities, governments, and companies in such a public forum spur action faster and more effectively than in the past.
And, as with all emerging conduits, mechanisms are being built and refined eventually improving the signal to noise ratio to a much more acceptable number (case in point... you troll or flame too much here, even anonymously, you get shut down until you clean up your act).
I am looking forward to the future that is the blogosphere.
Yes, let's just bash the 1st Ammendment. Bravo, Forbes. Then again, not really a magazine that believes all men are created equal either, :-). Hrm, maybe I should blog this Forbes bashing post.
Bloggers badly blog bashing belief bloggers blog badly.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
No target is too mighty, or too obscure, for this new and virulent strain of oratory. Microsoft has been hammered by bloggers; so have CBS, CNN and ABC News, two research boutiques that criticized IBM's Notes software, the maker of Kryptonite bike locks
The uproar and exposition of the Kryptonite bike locks was covered extensively on Slashdot. This _security_ product had severe design flaws that exposed the owners of their device to significant risk, and the company buried it, hoping no one would notice.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
My favorite part was:
"his tormentor sent letters about Halpern to Nestlé, the American Stock Exchange, the Food & Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission and the Brookhaven National Laboratory (involved in Circle's anthrax deal)."
Guess we should shut down these insidious user of postal mail and the organizations that support them like the U.S. Government and Postal Service.
Of Ben Franklin's newspaper. This sort of thing has been going on since the begining of the country- that's what freedom of the press is all about.
Having said that, my new signature line is key to defeating the danger of the blogosphere. For every action, there will be an equal and opposite reaction. This goes for business ethics just as much as it goes for momentum.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
That's how newspapers and magazines started, too. I suppose twenty years down the road some nascent prodigy's going to direct Citizen Instapundit, and then blogging will have arrived.
Their sign in page!
No Sigs!
People expressing their opinions online who aren't journalists controlled
by mega-corporations or dinosaur print media outlets!
Thank you for bringing this shocking abuse of free will to our attention Forbes!
Mass Media to the Masses: Please ignore the vulgar upwelling of free speech to your left. Look here, its Britney's baby photos! Lookit the photos! Thassa good boy!
from Microsoft shill Daniel Lyons? Any time he can make Linux or anyone connected to 'free', 'open', etc., look bad, he'll do it. Truth be damned.
Mike
So, power to the people?
A forbes article that's pretty much a rant against Freedom of Speech.
/predicts within 20 years, we will have an ammendment passed to limit the powers of "freedom of speech".
Not that I'm suprised.
Microsoft, CBS, CNN, ABC Yeah, I feel really bad now.
Amazing - Forbes, which caters to the very rich, is shocked and appalled that suddenly people who aren't rich are getting heard. And these giant, billion dollar companies just can't seem to figure out who to crush, or how to lock them out of the media. Hopefully once the internet becomes even better equipped for creating many-to-many streams of information (blogs are taking on newspapers, podcasts are taking on radio... soon it might even be... television?), we'll at least get to a point where the select few have aclimatized to the fact that there oligopolies are gone.
... will only carry out character assassination against those companies and individuals that the powers that be want smeared. Establishment organisations have always been against true free speech while paying lip service to supporting it.
god, don't you hate it when the lowly plebs have a forum in which to have their voice heard? I just feel so much sympathy for giant corporations with access to the biggest media outlets in the world. It's just awful that they are being picked on by individuals who more often than not live paycheck to paycheck and have to face the practical consequences of the decisions these companies make in private board rooms.
Also, boycott Nestle.
...... I'll quote them in my blog.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
How dare they...
Perhaps I should start a blog about how I hate blogs...
End transmission.
This is about the democratization of communication
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
"Suddenly they are the ultimate vehicle for brand-bashing, personal attacks, political extremism and smear campaigns."
Blogging is not without abuse, much like the sold-out whoring "official" mass media. Could it be that the "official" media, including Forbes, is simply afraid of becoming less relevant?
Forbes don't like that people actually can exercise their constitutional rights to free speach ?
Sigh!
Just saying it like it are.
You say people are able to exercise their first amendment rights? And you can't find them in order to threaten them? Aww, let's pass some laws to help out. Ya damn crybaby.
Anonymous free speech is guaranteed by the constitution. Get used to it or do business in another country.
And they have the gall to complain about bloggers? You know bloggers are hitting a lot of nerves- good for them.
we will end no whine before its time
What I find surprising is that nobody has pointed out yet what Dan Gillmore has mentioned: namely, that the article encourages firms to "(f)ind some copyrighted text that a blogger has lifted from your Web site and threaten to sue his Internet service provider under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act".
Geez. Talk about an abuse of the (already abusive) DMCA and the justice system in general. I really lost a lot of respect for Forbes when I read that - going after people who exercise their right to free speech and disagree with you is bad enough, but bringing fraudulent lawsuits against them and their ISPs is, well, criminal. Or if it's not, then it should be.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Daniel Lyons deserves to be banned from publishing in Forbes for his sidebar on Pamela Jones. Completely paints one side of the story without any attempt at balance, and uses quotes out of context to twist the meaning of the words.
>> When O'Gara's story about her quest appeared in Linux Business News, an online magazine, indignant bloggers went on the attack. They said the story was unethical and demanded that the site take it down. (So much for free speech.)
>> Jones responded by penning a pious thank-you to her defenders. "My faith in the human race is restored," she wrote. "It means so much to me to know that there is still a line, an ethical line, and some things we agree we ought never to do to a fellow human."
If I recall correctly, O'Gara's story attempted to question Jones' sexual orientation or something else of that nature, and Pamela Jones' reply about "an ethical line" refers to this.
Daniel Lyons completely left that bit out, instead talking only about O'Gara as simply trying to meet Pamela or verify that was her real name, and that bloggers ravenously swarmed to keep that information secret.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
It sounds like the company that was attacked by the bloggers was exposed for what it was...a lot of hype. Also, this is nothing new to blogging. There have been pumpers and haterz in the stock community since the begining. If you read the books about Jesse Livermore (who traded in the early 1900s), the used to have tout sheets all over the place. I don't see why they want to blame bloggers for this one.
No Sigs!
Which really annoys Forbes because that's their turf.
Apparently groklaw just posts a bunch of IBM rhetoric without considering the merits of SCO's allegation ... ROFLMAO can somebody really write this with a straight face ???
We all know it is bad that people now are able to tell the truth about corporate abuse. The world was much a much better place when corporations like Fox were able to say that "We will decide what the news is. The news is what we tell you it is." http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1998Q2/foxbgh.htm l and make journalists who were able to think for themselves and had their own opinions shup up.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
JON: With more on the role of blogger's in today's media, I'm joined by Daily Show senior media correspondent, Stephen Colbert.
STEPHEN: Jon, before we begin, I'd like to get something off my chest, before I get 'outed' by the bloggers.
My real name isn't Stephen Colbert. It's Ted Hitler. No relation. Well, distant relation, two generations back. Directly. I'm Adolf Hitler's grandson. Anyways, it's out there. It's no longer news.
JON: Uh, uh, wow. First of all, thank you for your honesty, Stephen...
STEPHEN: It's Ted. It's Ted Hitler.
JON: Ted, you're sort of 'old media,' you're an old media reporter. What are your thoughts on, in your mind, the role of these new media figures?
STEPHEN: Jon, the vast majority of bloggers out there are responsible correspondents doing fine work in niche reporting fields like Gilmore Girl fan fiction, or cute things their cats do or photoshopped images of the Gilmore Girls as cats. That's great. Where I draw the line is with these "attack bloggers," just someone with a computer who gathers, collates and publishes accurate information that is then read by the general public. They have no credibility. All they have is facts. Spare me...
JON: But, Stephen, I mean, to be perfectly...
STEPHEN: Okay, I put myself through school as a Colombian drug mule. I put heroin in condoms and I smuggled them into the country in my colon. Okay? Fine. Post away, atrios.blogspot.com
JON: Um -- getting back to the story, Stephen, the medium of the internet may be new but what bloggers do, as you just described it, is really in many respects what journalists do.
STEPHEN: 'What journalists do', Jon? As a journalist, I think I know what I do. I'm not sitting at home in front of my computer. I'm out there busting my hump every day at the White House, transcribing their press releases, repeating their talking points. That's how you earn your nickname from President Bush. And when he stands at the podium, points at me and says 'You, Chowderneck - question?' Everyone knows its me. Ted Hitler.
JON: But as long -- as long as the blogs fact-check, as long as these bloggers check their facts, why would you even object to this kind of political coverage?
STEPHEN: Because it's not political coverage, Jon. They're reporting on the reporters. The first rule of journalism is 'Don't talk about journalism'. Or maybe that's Fight Club, but my point is this. These guys need to learn: you don't report on reporters. Nobody likes a snitch! If they've got to report on something, why don't they take some of that youthful moxie of theirs and investigate this administration. Somebody ought to! You would not believe the things they're getting away with!
JON: But Stephen...
STEPHEN: Fine, Jon. Three years ago I killed a panda. Ling-Ling! Or the other one. I can't tell them apart. In my own defense, in my own defense Jon, it was dark, I was drunk, and it was delicious. Sorry to ruin your scoop, Colbert_Killed_A_Panda.com
JON: Now Stephen, like it or not, these bloggers have already gained a certain legitimacy.
STEPHEN: Yes, Jon, and therein lies our only hope. For with legitimacy, the bloggers will gain a seat at the table, and with that comes access, status, money, power. And if we've learned anything about the mainstream media, that breeds complacency.
Or, whatever.
(The Daily Show, Feb 16, 2005)
This might have meant something coming from some other source, but Forbes is hardly the height of objective and level-headed reporting itself.
I mean, if nothing else, look at this article. This article is essentially made up entirely of brand-bashing, personal attacks, and smear campaign, and then it goes on to complain about "brand-bashing, personal attacks, and smear campaigns". Hmm.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Anyway, that piece of software increases morale because people laugh at the interface and wonder how could the designer have been so stupid. :-)
I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and dial again.
that's always good, and healthy for a democracy
what the forbes article suggests is that we should all suppress our desires to express ourselves
i mean the article is 100% right: blogs are a wasteland of mental detritus
however, i'll take that wasteland of mental detritus over some sort of expectation or belief that the content of all of our minds should be placid and the same, without any sense of dissent
blogs are nothing but windows on people minds, and anyone who is surprised that most of what is in our minds is absolute crap doesn't really know the human species very well
blgos are an avenue for venting, for blowing off steam, and it's a healthy, acceptable way to do so
to suppress that doesn't destroy asocial impulses, it merely means pressure builds and asocial thoughts and desires get expressed in far less acceptable ways, often in real life
far better the web serve as our mental trashground than real life, don't you agree?
so the author of this piece may or may not be happier in an authoritarian state, but they certainly are guilty of taking blogs WAY too seriously in the least, and at the worst, they have antidemocratic instincts and impulses
and if so, then please, by all means, dear forbes article author: enjoy your emigration to north korea, the utopia of sameness and consensus you seek
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I remember reading about a suicide where a person blew himself up. Naturally the blogs picked up on the story and completly trashed the guy by saying he was a terrorist and he wanted to kill people. They provided all these information supporting the fact that he was a terrorist that the Government says is complete bull. Of course I don't know if this is just an effect of news in general or blogging.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Sage advice from Forbes on what to do about those evil bloggers:
BASH BACK. If you get attacked, dig up dirt on your assailant and feed it to sympathetic bloggers. Discredit him.
ATTACK THE HOST. Find some copyrighted text that a blogger has lifted from your Web site and threaten to sue his Internet service provider under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That may prompt the ISP to shut him down. Or threaten to drag the host into a defamation suit against the blogger. The host isn't liable but may skip the hassle and cut off the blogger's access anyway. Also:Subpoena the host company, demanding the blogger's name or Internet address.
SUE THE BLOGGER. If all else fails, you can sue your attacker for defamation, at the risk of getting mocked. You will have to chase him for years to collect damages. Settle for a court order forcing him to take down his material.
Not terribly responsible journalism by Daniel Lyons. Of course, you may remember the earlier Lyons article in which he defended Maureen O'Gara's attack on groklaw's PJ. He doesn't appear to be an open source enthusiast. For example, in an article on Marc Fleury of JBoss fame, he writes:Memo to Slashdot, and to myself: YHBT.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Forbes usually works with big media companies and politicians. So Forbest think that bloggers are difficult to understand and control. And that is somthing that no one than wants to preserve the status quo wants.
to voice their opinions!
I, for one, am glad that Forbes Magazine is willing to stand up and speak out for the victims of this heinous free speech.
...the media got a taste of their own medicine. After all they *never* prominantly post damaging, factually incorrect stories and then hide the retractions, right?
Beep beep.
For having opinons that have not been vetted and approved by their social betters. Namely, us. The people that decide what news IS news, how it will be reported, what it will be called, when, and for how long. We've worked tierlessly to have people become addicted to learning what we want them to know the way we want them to know it. And then these damned bloggers go around spouting opinions, opinions on opinions, variations and digression on opinions and sometimes actual independently verified facts! How is an Ogliarch supposed to manage the masses and maintain control when THEY insist on using thier f***king freedom of speech?!? We only told them they had it so they would trust us to use it for them. Now they think they can do it on their own! They REALLY BELIEVE all that "one man crusading journalist" crap we've been shoveling at them!! The genie's out of the bottle and we'll pay hell trying to put it back.
First thing, we concentrate ownership of the backbone providers, then start filtering content. Say its for the children or something.
Then we loosen up the surveillance laws. Use the children again, or maybe the "pirates are everywhere" dodge...
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
I love seeing the fallout coming from those who love control, governments, corporations, unions, and churches.
I'm completely pro-freedom (as some know), beyond any libertarian even. I believe in the ultimate freedom of speech and expression. I guess so do many others without realizing it. I believe you should be able to libel, slander, copy verbatim with recognition, and yell fire in a crowded theater.
Blogs are a part of my desire to get rid of DNS. Type "McDonalds food" into GoogleWWWikiTorrent and you SHOULD get not only the Mc homepage, but the rants and reviews as well.
I, for one, welcome our overlord-destroying-rights being recovered.
It starts with "Congress shall make no law". Are they lobbying congress to ban blogs? I doubt it. Therefore, take your invalid alarmist argument and insert it horizontally in an orifce (yours) of your choice.
Unfortunately companies don't seem to be learning the right lesson about what that opposite reaction is. I assume, right, that with your sig you're trying to point out that if companies don't like people complaining about their actions on the internet, then the correct response would be to stop taking actions worthy of complaining about? No, according to Forbes, the correct response is:Uhm.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
That bit right there says an awful lot about the appeal of blogs.
I'm sure there's an awful lot of people who feel that their voices are either a) being ignored, or, b) being silenced by the "mighty". Ignoring which side of the political aisle you love/hate, when was the last time you felt your local elected official was truly acting in your best interests, instead of his or her own? Or, how much do you really trust the corporate world, the insurance industry, your gas company, etc., when they say they're really sorry, but the rates need to go up because of "X" ("X" usually having somethig to do with a major fuck-up on their part). The short answer is, you can't, and most people don't. What's been particularly troubling over the past few years is the active call to silence the voices that disagree, disapprove, or dismiss the hypocrisy, or those that actively highlight it.
Blogs give the smallest a voice that can be heard. They are freedom of speech in its purest form: a pamphlet produced by the masses, and distributed to the masses, completely independant of the channels that the mighty now control. This scares the hell of the people in power.
I think that's a good thing.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
What a whiner. He's just pissed because he's not rich enough to shut everyone up.
This is just more trash talk from Dan Lyons, Forbes own resident pro-SCO, anti-"Linux crunchies" troll. He's apparantly realized that his only hope of keeping his job indefinitely is to convince his bosses that having one's arguments meticulously dissected by flaw-finding weblogs is a meaningless annoyance that happens to everybody, and to dissuade his bosses from ever paying close attention to the flaws found in Dan's own work.
Don't even click the link and give them an ad impression. Unless the man has just lost his mind, the whole reason for writing these shrill rants is to draw more "Slashdot effect" hits. It's quite possible that Forbes is thrilled to see all the attention in their web server logs, not yet realizing they're getting it by driving away the "Wall Street Journal" audience in favor of the more populous "National Enquirer" crowd.
I've only skimmed the article, but has it occured to you guys that it might not be all wrong. We're quick to rush in and defend blogs - they're a great way for the underdogs to expose actual wrongdoing and injustices - but maybe not all bloggers deserve our support.
The truth is, Forbes is right, blogs allow yahoos with an axe to grind and phony information to gain publicity adn credibility - after all, they're the underdog, standing against the faceless corporation. In a day where pretty much all of us are very skeptical of anything published in the mainstream maybe far too many of us are willing to take anything read in a blog as the gospel truth (I read it on the Internet, so it has to be true).
FUD flows in both directions, and businesses should be at least aware of the blogosphere, and that bloggers may be spreading misinformation, and how to counter it with the truth. Businesses, of course, also need to know that the blogosphere is watching their every move - and they need to be more careful now than ever that they always act ethically - something thye should be doing anyway.
Reading the Frobes article deeper, it's pretty hard to defend. The article itself is full of misinformation and despicable ideas (in their sidebars, they side with SCO, malign Pamela Jones, and suggest using the DMCA to take down blogs). Nevertheless, the general idea of my post still remains - maybe we're a bit too trusting of blogs, and it doesn't hurt to look at the other's guys point of view. Bloggers are just as capable of spreading FUD as a corporation - even more capable because wheras a corporation has very very little accountability, an anonymous blogger has even less.
Stupid like a fox!
It looks like Kryptonite bike locks deserve to be bashed.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Montreal??? hahahahahahahahahah
All this "bashing" is just the people expresssing their views.
Before the Internet even in the West we had a distorted view of the world based on very centralized and highly regulated media control. It wasn't China-- but ask Howard Stern or embedded Gulf Storm reporters if it was censored or not.
Media companies and the government are scrambling to create legislation to regain control but I don't think it will ever be the same. Without global political unification and draconian measures---the internet has way too many nooks and crannies to have a different point of view.
All this talk about the morality of freedom actually seems to have affected change in meaningful ways beyond propaganda. The only ones that will lose are the fear monger politicians and a few insecure rich parasites.
Vive la liberte.
Well if these asshole business men don't want to hear what blogs say, then they should stop shoveling their crap products and services on people...then maybe we won't have anything to complain about.
My guess is that the only reason Forbes keeps him is because their advertisers (including the obvious suspect) pay them to do so - no matter how much it harms Forbes's credibility.
When I start my blog, my least favorite store [Google search for "{store name}" lousy customer service] will be at the top of the list.
I knew someone with a several-hundred-dollar issue with them several years back. They stalled and stalled and I'm not sure how it was resolved but until they shape up I'm going to keep spreading the news.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
In the article on PJ, he describes Maureen O'Gara's attempt to unmask PJ, yet fails to consider the possiblity that MOG found someone entirely unrelated and performed a unprovoked and unjustified intrusion into an unrelated person's privacy.
The basic problem with the article is that is completely ignores the possiblity that bloggers are finding and publishing real facts that are unpleasant for companies to have publicised.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
What a shock it is where people can express their opinions freely. Stop them! Arrest them! This outrage must be curtailed forwith!
There's a bunch of people out there expressing opinions I don't agree with! Oh, the horror! Blogs must be stopped!
I'm a public school teacher (history, econ, comp sci) and a blogger (conservative) and I see a huge similarity between the old media and the blogoshpere and the medieval church and the renaissance/reformation. The old media is like the church, the guardians of the truth, while the new media (bloggers) are little old Copernicus publishing his ideas. Blogger, et al. are in many ways the new printing press.
For example, the NY Times, the high priest of the church, has come under withering attacks from the blogosphere for continued bias and outright falsehoods. USA Today just got caught doctoring a photo of Condi Rice. The liberal bloggers are critical of Fox and others, but those most afraid of the blgos are the old media. Rather was caught by right-of-center Little Green Footballs and Powerline in a blatant attempt to pass forgeries. The NY Times was caught in numerous lies. AP was caught getting inside info from terrorists about where bombs were going to go off.
But whatever a blogger's political persuasion, they have stolen, for want of a better word, the power of the old media to control what we see, when we see it, how we see it, or worse, if we see it at all. That's the real problem. I don't expect anything less of old media. (It's also why Microsoft fights open source so fiercely. Loss of power and control.)
Blogs are tantamount to posting 95 theses for the whole world to see.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Those bitches sold me something as a lock, having only a single key to open it, and a guarantee against pick based attacks. In reality I bought a heavy ass paper weight. ANY person with a bic pen could open it. I bitched about it in my blog, after they refused to replace the lock because I lacked a receipt. Many others did the same thing.
They still wouldn't exchange it.
I bitched on my blog about how it's very unlikely I stole the lock, and waited for the owner to mug him for the key. Many others did the same thing.
Eventually they opened up exchanges to anyone with a lock and a key to open it.
Blogs give people the power to alter the pereption of a company, affect their bottom line, and coerce them into responsible actions.
I still won't buy kryptonite products because of their complete failure to immediately and resposibly stand behind their products. It took so long for Kryptonite to stand up and replace the locks, I was forced to buy from another company to product my investment in my bike. By the time they actually implemented the exchange program, it was pointless because they fucked over everyone who had their their locks, and forced everyone to buy new locks from other manufacturers out of necessity.
True, Pamela Jones is a bit secretive, and a bit more of a free-software zealot than is really a good idea (I'm more of a BSD-liscence kinda guy.), but as a journalist, she is a hell of a lot better than Maureen O'Gara.
Having actually READ Groklaw on a regular basis, as well as O'Gara's tripe, its clear that PJ is the journalist while O'Gara is the shill.
It is unfortunate some of the zealots who DOS'ed Sys-con, but as an allegedly journalistic site, they showed a distinct lack of editorial intelligence in having O'Gara write for them. Sys-con probably would have been better served by the journalistic skills of Jason Blair.
Test your net with Netalyzr
"So, power to the people?"
I'd be more impressed by the power of the people if they used some of it to demonstrate responsability and restraint. Being a squeaky wheel is easy. Being an effective squeaky wheel is harder.
please register to read this article.
thank you, now that we have your contact info, would you care to subscribe to our publication?
no? are you sure?
no!?! maybe you didnt hear me correctly, you'll actually receive our magazine, and get to read it!!!
ok, well can we at least email you at a later time and see if you've changed your mind?
anyway, our magazine caters to large corporations, many of which are souless. you know, the ones that neglect the very people they rely on to keep their heads above water. regardless, if we were to piss off said corporations, all of our advertising revenue would be lost...therefore, any indication that we support free speech would be bad. therefore, we hate people who speak up for themselves and those who have no voice. you should be ashamed of yourselves. maybe if you watched more funny television shoes, you wouldnt be so mean and critical...we hear that everybody loves raymond is nice.
dude
I guess the Forbes corporate staff sees the value from pleasing those advertisers as more important than the harm such transparent lies do to the reputation of their magazine.
Did Forbes shift HQ to the Gulf?? Or do they have Saddam as their next CEO? Whatever happened to freedom of speech. Guess what? The next thing that bloggers will be blogging against would definitely be Forbes. Never seen anything more dumb, unless ofcourse its MS.
The pen is mightier than the sword. The keyboard is mightier than the pen.
All that forbes said about blogs is, IMHO, good. It says basically: while the internet is a "free speech zone", everyone should keep their noses clean, because no dirt will escape. Simple as that.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
I've often thought, even from the early '90s, that the internet is like a microscope into the human psyche.
I mean, look at porn. No, actually *look* at it.
Or the phenomenon of blogs.
Or online dating sites.
I recall stories of when microscopes were first invented in Europe and people were shown samples of water and being repulsed by the idea of swallowing such monsters as could be seen through the lens.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
One judges the content of a magazine based on what it looks like in areas you know something about, i.e. if you know it to be crap within your field of expertise, it's probably crap outside it, too. Judging from their pro-MS / anti-Open Source articles and advising its readers to file frivolous lawsuits against bloggers, the only good things one can use Forbes for are opposition research, and a gift subscription to a competitor's CTO.
Tech Public Policy stuff
...once said "Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one."
Now, fortunately, nearly everyone "owns one."
It seems that the select few who are used to being just that (the select few who had their voices heard/published/what have you...), are now part of the great majority and they don't like it none too much.
Pretty un-sage. And pretty un-Forbes-like. Sounds a lot like a certain UFO cult, actually.
> BASH BACK. If you get attacked, dig up dirt on your assailant and feed it to sympathetic bloggers. Discredit him.
> ATTACK THE HOST. Find some copyrighted text that a blogger has lifted from your Web site and threaten to sue his Internet service provider under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That may prompt the ISP to shut him down. Or threaten to drag the host into a defamation suit against the blogger. The host isn't liable but may skip the hassle and cut off the blogger's access anyway. Also:Subpoena the host company, demanding the blogger's name or Internet address.
> SUE THE BLOGGER. If all else fails, you can sue your attacker for defamation, at the risk of getting mocked. You will have to chase him for years to collect damages. Settle for a court order forcing him to take down his material.
and
I never have seen on a magazine like Forbest that the mighty power enterprises have too much power, or any criticism to it's politicians friends.
Just search the Microsoft Topic and you are going to find a lot of news about the "hated" one. Some news are to talk about some awful act of the Redmond company, but there are a lot of news about it's products (Despite my initial skepticism, I am deeply impressed with MSH technology, and I am legitimately excited about the future of the Windows command line.). That's somthing that you never are going to see on Forbest.
So it's better have a blog with it's good and bad posts, than a corporate-controled media.
My city: Barcelona.
...then get out of the kitchen.
Seriously... the problem isn't the blogs that complain about people/companies. The problem is that the people/companies that were targeted behaved in ways that pissed bloggers off. If public figures and companies would simply behave ethically and reasonably and not give so many people so many reasons to hate them, then there wouldn't be so many bloggers writing bad things about them.
People don't generally go out of their way to target you unless you did something wrong to piss them off in the first place -- that's just a simple truth of human behavior.
Or, in summary, don't piss people off, and then they won't say bad things about you.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
I work for Forbes.
So I am really getting a kick out of most of these replies.
Some of you guys are very good at making it sound like you know what you are talking about.
But trust me.... You don't.
I think you just want to make yourself sound smart, when in reality you dont
know what you are talking about.
This is how bad info gets passed around.
If you dont know about the topic....Don't make yourself sound like you do.
Cuz some Slashdotters belive anything they hear.
This was written by Daniel Lyons, known anti-Linux nutjob, and it appears to be attacking Jem Matzan, a blogger who tried to interview Lyons a while back. Lyons also proceeded to attack OSTG (because Jem worked for OSTG at the time) with a piece trashing VA Software for selling a proprietary form of SourceForge.
1) Post some controversial anti-FOSS article ...
2) Show boss how many page hits your article generates
3)
4) Profit
-Nuke the moon
I don't know about you people but I'm not going to click on the link and help generate advertising revenue for Forbes. Why are we even bothering with Forbes? They cater to the uber rich and generally only value extreme oppulence. You know when you are out looking to meet women; no one wants to bother with those that are materialistic and money grubbing. So why read a magazine that is all about the lives of those that are nothing but that? One final note why does what forbes have to say even matter, the value of their comments are way down there with supermarket tabloids. In fact I think they are on the shelf with the tabloids in the checkout lanes in wegmans...
Just to characterise my comment so its properly interpreted. "So why read a magazine that is all about the lives of those that are nothing but that?"
What I mean to say is that people can be rich and not ignorant like the fools that Forbes generally talks to and about. If you have a hundred million dollars and go out and buy random shit like these people to just convey how weathly you are, you are a prick and a snob.
Nice touch with the username/password!
The point of blogging is giving people a tool for free speech. Companies, government, etc., don't have control over our blogs, and they can't lower our voices.
In the past I've gotten into trouble for being too candid on my blog, because people can't handle the truth when they see it. It's too painful, so instead of evaluating themselves they criticize your blog, or dismiss what you say as extremism, even if it's actually valid.
I think being able to say what you want with or without anonymity is a beautiful thing, and even though anonymous cowards often inject a lot of BS into otherwise useful conversations, there are also a lot of truth to what anonymous cowards are willing to say.
Honestly, speaking the truth about Big Brother in a public forum can be dangerous because our society is so lopsided our 'freedom' isn't actually freedom at all. Without public forums, blogging, letters to the editors, and other forums that offer opposing and tangential viewpoints, we could grow trapped in these small little boxes but never break free of it .
And now that we can speak out even easier, without restraint, Big Brother doesn't like it? Well tough shit. How about you handle your business process with high levels of moral restraint and appreciation for their impacts on local and global societies?
Granted, you're never going to please _everyone_. But in the end, if you don't want the masses ripping on the stupid things you do or say, stop doing stupid things.
The problem doesn't start with the blogs, the blogs are a symptom of the real sickness.
As others have pointed out this isn't at all surprising given the source. Forbes and the rest of large media have long held sway over public thinking and the glut of blogs which encroach into what they long considered their territory is threatening to them. What we have here is big media mirroring the current political state in the U.S. in that they are threatened by anyone or anything which has a strong public hold and that they don't control. Forbes isn't saying anything unique they are simply parroting what the rest of big media is saying privately. What kills me about the Forbes article is not just the unabashed hubris but the fact that they would actually suggest that companies, news agencies, etc actually abuse the judiciary system by bringing baseless lawsuits against someone for exercising their first amendment rights. This really is hypocrisy at it's finest and a shining example of why alternate news and information services are vital. If we continued to rely on the likes of Forbes and the rest of big media we would end up having the same regurgitated crap thrown at us direct from large corporations, the government, etc.
Personally that Forbes has gone to the trouble of putting this article out there is very telling. It speaks volumes to not just their abject fear of being replaced but their fear of people finding out the truth about those who pad the coffers of places like Forbes.
What's that, slashdot karma points??? HA! I got your karma points right here!!
He's apparantly realized that his only hope of keeping his job indefinitely is to convince his bosses that having one's arguments meticulously dissected by flaw-finding weblogs is a meaningless annoyance...
Or it's a way to drum-up pagehits from the blogosphere.
I'm sure the sensationalism helps Forbes' ad revenue, in the short-term at least.
Sounds like Forbes is in its "Last Throes" before bieng made irrelevent by a new medium :)
How's that for a short list of inflammatory shit? This guy has a long history of flamebait. Forbes, you suck.
This "lynch mob" baloney and the smear response has been floating around the M$ moronosphere for a while now, and it's being taken up by other big dumb companies. Everytime someone makes a reasonable complaint, M$ has paid these nutcases to scream "extremism, liars, lynch mob!" Yes, I mean you Laura DidioIt's amazing how big dumb companies can dish out the insults like that but have a hard time when someone's little blog complains, rightly, about a billing dispute or some other notorious practice. Cry me a river Dan, your corporate task masters are having another "best year ever" screwing their customers. They are not going to take it quietly and trying to smear your customers is not going to win you new ones.
Oh yeah, I know how the "expert" knows that 50% of blogs are written by competitors. He or someone he knows is being paid to robot post bullshit. That's the one thing missing from the sidebar learned from the RIAA: pollute the space. It's not going to work.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Forbes sucks.Maybe M$ wrote that article to cause a conservative wave of ethics, like GWBush tries to do once in a while. who cares, I'm exercising my right to free speech.
Web logs are the prized platform of an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective. Their potent allies in this pursuit include Google and Yahoo.
Gregory Halpern knows how to hype. Shares of his publicly held company, Circle Group Holdings, quadrupled in price early last year amid reports that its new fat substitute, Z-Trim, was being tested by Nestlé. As the stock spurted from $2 to $8.50, Halpern's 35% stake in the company he founded rose to $90 million. He put out 56 press releases last year.
Then the bloggers attacked. A supposed crusading journalist launched an online campaign long on invective and wobbly on facts, posting articles on his Web log (blog) calling Halpern "deceitful,""unethical,""incredibly stupid" and "a pathological liar" who had misled investors. The author claimed to be Nick Tracy, a London writer who started his one-man "watchdog" Web site, our-street.com, to expose corporate fraud.He put out press releases saying he had filed complaints against Circle with the Securities & Exchange Commission.
Halpern was an easy target. He is a cocky former judo champion who posts photos of himself online with the famous (including Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief of this magazine). His company is a weird amalgam of fat substitute, anthrax detectors and online mattress sales. Soon he was fielding calls from alarmed investors and assuring them he hadn't been questioned by the SEC. Eerily similar allegations began popping up in anonymous posts on Yahoo, but Yahoo refused Halpern's demand to identify the attackers. "The lawyer for Yahoo basically told me, 'Ha-ha-ha, you're screwed,'" Halpern says. Meanwhile, his tormentor sent letters about Halpern to Nestlé, the American Stock Exchange, the Food & Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission and the Brookhaven National Laboratory (involved in Circle's anthrax deal).
But it turns out that scribe Nick Tracy of London was, in fact, a former stockbroker in Oregon named Timothy Miles--and Miles himself faces SEC charges that he took part in a pump-and-dumpstock scheme in 2000. He was tried in June and awaits a verdict. No matter:Circle Group stock fell below a dollar in a year of combat with Miles and the anonymous bashers on Yahoo (and after Nestlé dropped Z-Trim). Halpern's stake is down $75 million, and he blames Miles and his acolytes; he has sued for defamation. "Some of these bloggers have just one goal, and that is to do damage. It's evil," he says.
Blogs started a few years ago as a simple way for people to keep online diaries. Suddenly they are the ultimate vehicle for brand-bashing, personal attacks, political extremism and smear campaigns. It's not easy to fight back: Often a bashing victim can't even figure out who his attacker is. No target is too mighty, or too obscure, for this new and virulent strain of oratory. Microsoft has been hammered by bloggers; so have CBS, CNN and ABC News, two research boutiques that criticized IBM's Notes software, the maker of Kryptonite bike locks, a Virginia congressman outed as a homosexual and dozens of other victims--even a right-wing blogger who dared defend a blog-mob scapegoat.
"Bloggers are more of a threat than people realize, and they are only going to get more toxic. This is the new reality," says Peter Blackshaw, chief marketing officer at Intelliseek, a Cincinnati firm that sifts through millions of blogs to provide watch-your-back service to 75 clients, including Procter & Gamble and Ford. "The potential for brand damage is really high,"says Frank Shaw, executive vice president at Microsoft's main public relations firm, Waggener Edstrom. "There is bad information out there in the blog space, and you have only hours to get ahead of it and cut it off, especially if it's juicy."
Some companies now use blogs as a weapon, unleashing swarms of critics on their rivals. "I'd say 50% to 60% of attacks are sponsored by competitors," says Bruce Fischman, a lawyer in Miami for targets of online abuse. He says he represent
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
When one thinks about it, isn't Forbes itself a kind of print-version blog for the wealthy and wanna-be wealthy? Does anyone else even *read* it? Ads for things portrayed as "status symbols", as if anyone actually enhances their self-image by owning impermanent material possessions, articles about loopholes in tax laws and other such arcana... Or, could it be that they simply have problems with the idea that the sheeple might get ideas from some non-member of the wealth-elite - much less, I mean, heaven forbid that anyone with less than a magic number in their savings/investment accounts actually think for themselves... Face it, Forbes family: You've made yourselves irrelevant to too large a percentage of the planet's population.
Take the 90-Day Challenge! http://rwmurker.bodybyvi.com/
You Can't stop bloggers from launching an allout attack on you or your business if that's what they decide to do--but you can defend yourself. Here's how.
MONITOR THE BLOGOSPHERE. Put your own people on this or hire a watchdog (Cymfony, Intelliseek or Biz360, among others). Spot blog smears early, before they can spread, and stamp them out by publishing the truth.
START YOUR OWN BLOG. Hire a blogger to do a company blog or encourage your employees to write their own, adding your voice to the mix.
BUILD A BLOG SWARM. Reach out to key bloggers and get them on your side. Lavish them with attention. Or cash.Earlier this year Marqui, a tiny Portland, Ore. software shop, began paying 21 bloggers $800 per month to post items about Marqui, while requiring them to disclose the payments. Marqui's listings soared on Google from 2,000 to 250,000 results. Never mind that one blogger took the money and bashed a Marqui marketing strategy anyway.
BASH BACK. If you get attacked, dig up dirt on your assailant and feed it to sympathetic bloggers. Discredit him.
ATTACK THE HOST. Find some copyrighted text that a blogger has lifted from your Web site and threaten to sue his Internet service provider under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That may prompt the ISP to shut him down. Or threaten to drag the host into a defamation suit against the blogger. The host isn't liable but may skip the hassle and cut off the blogger's access anyway. Also:Subpoena the host company, demanding the blogger's name or Internet address.
SUE THE BLOGGER. If all else fails, you can sue your attacker for defamation, at the risk of getting mocked. You will have to chase him for years to collect damages. Settle for a court order forcing him to take down his material.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
There's no doubt an element of that but I'm sure it reaches deeper. There's a certain special offense when powerless proles are capable of raising problems for the monolothic, faceless multinationals which are Forbes' client base. There's more than a hint of anti-republic monied elitism in it, a sentiment almost as old as civilization
'Long'?
The boingboing post is 450 words long - I'd hardly call that long.
If you take out the words that are just quoting the Forbes article, then it's only 150 words long.
I mean, yeah, compared to the 'can't be arsed' posting style of Dave Winer, which would probably be:
...then I guess it's long.
I blame MTV. Or something.
[If you don't like Maureen O'Gara, feel free to read this /. post about MoGTrolls
/. post about MoGTrolls [slashdot.org]
The blog mob loves to spout off about First Amendment freedom, except when it seeks to deprive foes of the same. And so it was that bloggers came to the defense of one of their own--a mystery woman named Pamela Jones--and succeeded in having a story about her retracted and getting its author all but fired.
Jones has become a star in the blog-riddled Linux software movement. Her blog, Groklaw, sprang up in 2003 to cover a Linux-related lawsuit that software firm SCOGroup had filed against IBM. It cranks out lengthy articles, and it archives every document filed in the case.
Jones describes herself as a journalist, yet her blog is unabashedly pro-IBM, insisting from the start that SCO's claims are groundless. She won't discuss her background or reveal where she lives or even confirm that Pamela Jones is her real name. Her Web site is registered through a proxy service in Arizona that shields her identity. PJ (her nickname) lists no phone number and won't say how she funds her operation.
SCO executives call Groklaw a "mouthpiece"for IBM, though IBM says it isn't involved with Jones in any way. Last year Jones' blog published an IBM legal document two days before the court made it public, a sign that it likely was leaked by lawyers involved in the case. IBM's outside lawyers in the case won't comment.
In February an intrepid reporter, Maureen O'Gara, decided to uncloak the mystery after she found a phone number Jones had left with staff at the federal courthouse in Nevada where a related SCO suit was filed.O'Gara traced the number to an apartment in Hartsdale, N.Y., 10 miles from IBM headquarters in Armonk. O'Gara spoke to the building superintendent and later found Jones' mother in Connecticut, but she never got hold of the shy blogger herself.
When O'Gara's story about her quest appeared in Linux Business News, an online magazine, indignant bloggers went on the attack. They said the story was unethical and demanded that the site take it down. (So much for free speech.) When the site's publisher, Sys-Con Media, refused, anonymous callers bombarded employees with obscene phone calls and e-mails.They also badgered Sys-Con's advertisers to get them to pull ads from Sys-Con sites. Hackers shut down Sys-Con's Web site for four days, robbing it of $200,000 in ad revenue.
So Sys-Con caved in, yanking the story and agreeing to forgo articles written by O'Gara. "What are my options?We have criminal people who were taking us hostage, trying to destroy my business,"says Sys-Con Chief Fuat Kircaali.
Jones responded by penning a pious thank-you to her defenders. "My faith in the human race is restored," she wrote. "It means so much to me to know that there is still a line, an ethical line, and some things we agree we ought never to do to a fellow human."
Maureen O'Gara remains banned from publishing articles on Sys-Con's 16 sites. And Pamela Jones remains shrouded in mystery.
[If you don't like Maureen O'Gara, feel free to read this
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Unsubstantiated blog rumors:
Rumor has it Forbes is run by a bunch of boring white guys.
Sources say they wear sensible relaxed fit dockers.
This reporter has learned that Forbes ancient "magazine" print format is dead, publishers have resorted to door-to-door salespeople to try to get subscribers.
Sources say that blogs are free speech, just as magazines are.
But none of that could be true, could it?
The more I think about it, the phenomenon of blogging really is symbolic of America's problems in general. There have never been so many issues on which people can disagree. And it has never been so easy to find people who are on your side. So rather than thoughtfully engaging the other side with the (ever-so-small) potential for the other side to be right, and for someone to have learned something in the process of that engagement, anybody can just go find a blog that emphatically spouts their viewpoint. At the end of the day, everyone has their viewpoint reinforced, and all are less likely to find a compromising middle ground.
Need an example? I just came to this site to get the latest news on why Microsoft sucks.
Geeze. I read the summary, and my first thought was, "This looks like Daniel Lyons' writing". Frankly, the stuff he writes is often far worse than I read on most blogs. He's deliberately inflamitory and seems to talk in absolutes most of the time. I wonder if he thinks he's playing Devil's Advocate or something when he writes this garbage.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
"One blog, Groklaw, exists primarily to bash software maker SCOGroup in its Linux patent lawsuit against IBM, producing laughably biased, pro-IBMcoverage; its origins are a mystery (see box, p. 136)." WTF is this guy really to be taken seriously?
Everyone has an agenda. You just happen to dislike Forbes'. And of course, it does pay to bash Microsoft sometimes.
BTW, I remember you, you posted something once claiming that anyone who disagreed with you had an 'enslaving mouth' or some such nonsense. What a hoot. I guess we'll take your comments on this matter with a grain of salt, eh?
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Oh my! Who gave the right for people to say what they thing? On the internet? I mean...it is so...2005...
Sucks doesn't it. Big business and political hucksters getting the wood in a free forum. The powerful will always be afraid of the huddled masses with big ass blaring bullhorns.
"He was a wise man who invented beer." - Plato
PJ's First runin with Mr Lyons. Could this be why he had the "Who is PJ" sidebar? Anyone care to ask Forbes Editor to explain?
Test your net with Netalyzr
I clicked it, a search of groklaw mentions of Forbes came up.
What does that mean? You think every time groklaw mentions Forbes, Forbes smeared someone?
I just don't get what you're trying to say here.
The first part seemed more like a mistake than a personal attack too, not that Forbes has never personally attacked someone, just not in this case.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Now before everyone jumps all over me, there are many excellent blogs out there on the net. However, the bell curve rules, meaning that there are also some blogs that are not so good. The problem starts when the readers of the blogs are unable or unwanting to distinguish the difference.
Actually, Slashdot was one of the first user moderated and user filled blogs. The opinion you ridicule here is the considered opinion of your customer's. It was started by a few tech school students and has grown.
There are many differences between Slashdot and Forbes. The first and most important is that Forbes claims to be an impartial newpaper. Slashdot has always been an editorial, as you might gather from the "news that matters" tag, and almost always mirrors other content rather than generating it's own. That's why you find this Forbes article being ridiculed. Another important distinction is that Forbes is paid by Microsoft to publish. I imagine that OSTG is making money off Slashdot, so the relationship between tail and dog is reversed. Most importantly to me, Forbes stories usually violate common sense and personal observations. Slashdot, on the other hand, usually mirrors content from other sites filled with reproducible research and sensible opinion. Finally, the voices you read here, when the place is not overwhelmed by paid astroturfers, is the considered opinion of ... your customers.
BTW, I remember you, you posted something once claiming that anyone who disagreed with you had an 'enslaving mouth' or some such nonsense.
I agree, that sounds like nonsense.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Because the big corporations can't control the internet. They can control The United States Congress. They can control the President. They can control the local Mayor and the Sheriff. They can control judges.
But right now, business is business, and ISP's are characterized on their reluctance to divulge account information, and willingness to censor.
The big corporations want control because it's the only bad Public Relations of which they have no control or forsight. They can't anticipate it, and they can't censor it. This pisses them off, and they call up Forbes.
Forbes can suck it. And through Forbes, all the American Corporations that stand to lose from employee reporting of their business practices (Boeing, Microsoft, Walmart, Best Buy, MGM, Time-Warner, Pfiser, and at least one hundred more that slip my mind right now...).
Is Daniel Lyons runing scared? Remmeber folks the typical attack aginst blog post usually starts like this: 1. We want such such a post removed.. 2. We will sue to hav epost removed.. 3. Than when we Bloggers assert our legal rights .. no sound from the complainer is heard..
I have been attacked myself for posting apost describing a spammers actiosn agsint me..
He shut the f*ck up when I called the Washignton State Attorneys office..
Fred Grott(aka shareme) http://mobilebytes.wordpress.com
Yes, it was. It was also (along with Scoop of Kuro5in) one of the first free content management systems ever released.
The opinion you ridicule here is the considered opinion of your customer's.
It would be, if the Slashdot editors weren't known for editing submissions to make them sound more sensationalistic.
The first and most important is that Forbes claims to be an impartial newpaper.
Forbes has never claimed anything like that. It's not a requirement for running a media outlet, you know?
Another important distinction is that Forbes is paid by Microsoft to publish.
Cite, please.
Most importantly to me, Forbes stories usually violate common sense and personal observations.
And which 'common sense' is that? Yours? Heh. That's a great argument.
Slashdot, on the other hand, usually mirrors content from other sites filled with reproducible research and sensible opinion.
OK, that's ridiculous... but even if it were true, it's still subject to what you consider 'common sense'. Slashdot used to be good. It's turned into nothing but a 24/7 flame fest of epic proportions with dupes and bullshit articles like the 'Microsoft flu' or the 'amazing creatures being dredged up by the tsunami', among thousands of others.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I agree, that sounds like nonsense.
I don't know if you're being facetious - I can look it up for you, if you want.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Check out http://www.failingenterprise.com./
It's a combination of blog and discussion board. 1.4 million hits a month, and growing.
I have this theory... Mainstream media (traditional media, dead tree media, whatever) is under a lot of pressure these days, not from bloggers per se, but the popularity of blogs as an advertising medium. Look at Gawker media and Weblogs Inc. Where would those advertising dollars be spent if banners weren't showing up on the two networks 100+ blogs? Volvo launched an ad campaign with Y! 360, or was it MSN Spaces, no matter, the point is, MSM is too rigid to adapt. They're like the dinosaurs. No one is 100% sure why they went extinct, but whether it was a gradual change where they couldn't adapt or a catastropic event that wiped them out, the fact is, they're gone in favor of a more hearty species. Time will tell the truth about blogs.
I'm Freaking Out!
Clearly it was the bloggers' fault that his stock fell, not the fact that its whole reason for being up in the first place fell through.
Also, slander and libel didn't exist before the internet.
His articles are in fact not very Linux friendly.
Well my friends... blogging is simply the public relations division of the public. So now we can fight back against their FUD with our own FUD.
Now the only thing we need is a legal department against their lawyers...
any ideas?
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
The thing is that blogs are competing for eyeballs, and while blogs do link to other blogs in a cooperative fashion, there is also an element of competition there. And if a blog screws up its factchecking or makes a wild and unfounded accusation, other blogs will turn on it and tear it apart. Or just mock it and make sure that everyone is aware the site messed up.
The stuff that tears through the whole blog community is the stuff that tends to get its facts checked and confirmed, and there's a certain critical mass of blogs that are needed for some of this stuff to take off. The whole kryptonite lock thing was something that was confirmed repeatedly by multiple blogs. And numerous eyeballs were aimed at Dan Rather's reports.
Who watches the blogs? The blogs police each other. And the blogs are scattered over too wide a political spectrum with no centralized control point for there to be much of a conspiracy across them.
You think every time groklaw mentions Forbes, Forbes smeared someone?
Do you? The Original Poster never said that. Why not look at Lyons' articles and see if he did smear someone or not?
I just don't get what you're trying to say here.
That's correct, you don't. Go back and try looking at it again and seeing if you get it this time. Here's a hint. Don't substitute your thoughts for those of the Original Poster. Just look at what is actually there and maybe do some research.
The first part seemed more like a mistake than a personal attack too, not that Forbes has never personally attacked someone, just not in this case.
What do you call a mistake that is published in a national magazine? "Not an attack in this case"? What do you call something that is obviously incorrect and should never have been stated in public? An innocent slip? What if it's a pattern and not a rare event?
Clue: Read a bit of what Daniel Lyons has written. Then read a bit of what people have to say about what he wrote. The chasm between the two will be obvious. Yes, even to you.
How many blogs require me (as Forbes does) to sign-up and log-in in order to read them?
a Virginia congressman outed as a homosexual
Funny, it was common knowledge before the internet, and he's still winning re-elections despite intense spending by the other party to defeat him. He's even spoken about with respect on Slashdot. But, yeah, it's all the blogger's fault! (Assuming there's not another homosexual congressman from Virgina.)
Forbes=Flamebait
I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by
We lost corporate control over information! Think of the children!
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Thanks for the subscription link. Is Forbes paying a commission?
Those of you defending blogs like they're the holy grail of free speech need to get a grip on reality. The vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of blogs are completely useless pieces of crap, and are of the same quality (but far more quantity) as the "MY FIRST WEBPAEG!!1" in ye olden days, animated gifs, background midi music, and all.
The fact of the matter is, people give too much power to what other people think. Generally, this is because the reader is too stupid to think for themselves, and assumes whatever they read on the internet might as well have occurred before their very eyes. Plenty of us Just Don't Care(TM) and realize most blogs are crap, and the few that aren't usually aren't "reusable"; that is, they contain one diamond of information amongst a pile of crap.
Bloggers, go read some myspace or openjournal pages. No one cares if the girl you have a crush on infront of you doesn't like you, or that your english teacher failed you even though you have this t0ta11y bitching blog that you publish to when you're not chilling it with your friends (which is always since you have none).
Most blogs (that are readable and less diary-like) I see are wolves in sheeps clothing, typically written by educated individuals who, for whatever reason, are crazy-ass extremists with nothing really interesting to say.
Much like this post.
Blogs have been around for years. Only they were called websites i.e. geocities
The only difference is the layout and the fact that the news media finally noticed them.
personal attacks, political extremism and smear campaigns...
I dunno, isn't this what talk radio has been doing to liberal candidates for years? Where was Forbes then? Why is bashing a brand worse than bashing a person?
"Suddenly they are the ultimate vehicle for brand-bashing, personal attacks, political extremism and smear campaigns."
Kinda like they're doing with blogs. It's called free speech.
Fucking idiots.
Suddenly they are the ultimate vehicle for brand-bashing, personal attacks, political extremism and smear campaigns.
Sounds like Forbes feels threatened. Bloggers seem to have taken what the media has done for years and just done it on the grass-roots level.
It's not easy to fight back... Ok, so who exactly is the victim? this ambiguous sentence reaffirms Forbes' percieved threat. Often a bashing victim can't even figure out who his attacker is. No target is too mighty, or too obscure, for this new and virulent strain of oratory. Oh, yes, because the media is such a bastion of ethics and morals . ::cough cough:: Not that I'd mention any names ::cough cough:: Michael Shiavo, Gary Condit ::cough cough::. Because the media certainly these people out. Michael Shiavo now has this undeserved stardom and is the object of hate for radicals. Gary Condit was basically ruinned by the media (although his competance is questionable) because he had this affair (a common task of wealthy and powerful men).
Microsoft has been hammered by bloggers; so have CBS, CNN and ABC News, two research boutiques that criticized IBM's Notes software, the maker of Kryptonite bike locks, a Virginia congressman outed as a homosexual and dozens of other victims--even a right-wing blogger who dared defend a blog-mob scapegoat. Refer to the comments above. Not only has the media meddled in areas it has no right to, but it hasn't gone into areas it needs to. Is the media pissed that people actually question what they right ::shock!:: ::cough cough::. I really should get this cold checked out, that avian flu is supposed to be in Asia. Oh, wait, some more media hype about a disease that has only really affected people in Vietnam who have come in close contact with cattle dung. Sorry, Forbes, ya lose. The media will have to adapt to the blogosphere. Hell, the blogosphere is actually a source of good in the media. Dan Rather's bluff was called by a blogger, and the blogger was right on. I for one hate the media and its self-importance. The media a) reports no relevant news, b) is guilty of more "terrorism" crimes than bin Laden himself, c) is horribly biased, d) is so arrogant that corrections MUST go on the second page in small print, e) doesn't hold officials accountable (can anyone say "Abu Ghraib" or "Kosovo"? Anyone...? Anyone...?) f) gives only some actual facts, and usually distorted ones at that, with no indepth analysis whatsoever g) is so concerned about being "first to cover", or have "breaking news" or whatever bullshit of the week to pander to viewers. I'm really tired of all of the big media establishment. They're bunch of pompous, arrogant shitheads who think far too idealistically and are willing to pin blame on their dead mother's gravestones. I am tired of them, and demand change. Bloggers of the world...well, keep blogging!
Fobes and others are upset that bloggers don't simply adore them? Oh, that's so horrible! Brings tears to my eyes, it does.
Bloggers are only saying what people would say anyway if there weren't blogs. The difference is that what they say is published. As many have already pointed out, they don't like the proles rising up and being heard. What's even worse is that their poor products and under-handed schemes remain published, unlike the one-night sensation on the news that is quickly fogotten. Blogging is a form of publishing that is difficult to control, unlike the "real" news media. Modern technology and the itnernet makes that possible. And Forbes (among others) are complaining? Boohoo. Get used to it. It's here, now, and it ain't going away. In other words, quit yer whining.
'Course, not giving so many people a good reason to attack you in the first place just might help deflect some future attacks.....
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
So a few rich powerful people can't figure out how to control their subjects' new forum. Too bad. Power to the people, we can post all of our nonsense freely once again!
I'm going to go out on a limb here. A brief read through the most highly-moderated comments has left me a little surprised. For those of us who did in fact RTFA (all four pages of it), it doesn't seem to me that the author is bashing the existence of blogs. The main point he makes, which I found valid, is that blogs can often times contain and propagate erroneous information (sometimes purposefully). Many of you have said things to the effect of "then the target should just respond with the truth". I definitely agree with you there, but what about the targets whose credability is totally ruined over false information, or the attack is so overwhelming as to drown them out? Their rebuttal is ignored and marginalized (especially in cases where the slander is the objective). What recourse do these targets have in the case of a relentless zealot who just so happens to be operating on incorrect information or motives? Cue flames...
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
I just picture these "unfortunate" blog targets as vampires hissing and recoiling from the light. No mention that the blogs were lying or creating information. So they're telling the truth too much? Hell half the news outlets and executive branch can't stop lying. That's why these blogs work.
Asides from the /. affect Forbes is going to suffer, imagine the brilliant move of torquing off a large section of one's current and future demographic? Brillian, absolutely brilliant.
0 04104
Of course then there are the countless parodies - here's the anti-blog cover redone to mock the ginned-up hysteria:
http://www.blogs4god.com/node/626
Not to mention the crappy legal advice the column offered, which is nicely reubtted using the DCMA's own verbage:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004104.php#
Sheesh - didn't the editors ask for some research first? Or is that only the domain of bloggers and not 'real journalists'
--- have you healed your church website?
http://www.forbes.com/business/free_forbes/2005/11 14/128.html
whenever you want to read a Forbes article (not often I grant) and you run into a registration screen....add the free_ in front of the forbes as above and you can read virtually the entire site for free.
I've often wondered... What defines one as "Bona Fide"?
Such as a release that will be shared only with "bona fide" developers? Or someone being treated as a "bona fide" journalist? How can one verify bonafication?
*looks at Alyssa Mack*
*looks at crotch*
Oh, is THAT what they mean... Well, duh.
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
This is some pretty sick stuff. Some of the choice pieces of absurdity for those of you who don't want to provide ad revenue by RTFA:
Its origins are a mystery?
This is truly sad. Some crackpots cooked up some conspiracy theory and Kryptonite has to replace their admittedly useless locks. But let's not overlook my personal favorite:
Wow, who knew that the EFF had such nefarious goals? Here I was thinking it had something to do with free speech and fair use....
Holy fuck, I'm scared now. Forbes is coming. I'm pulling my blog off the internet right this minute.
So, Forbes magazine (a paper printed blog) doesn't like on line blogs. They want to cause all sorts of harassment. Just like the things they would be the first to scream 'first amendment' about if done to them.
This isn't news, just proof that Forbes (the champion of competition) doesn't like competition.
More hypocracy in the press. Nothing new here.
I'm good friends with someone who used to work for Mr. Halpern, and I can assure everyone that he's certainly not the innocent victim as portrayed by this article...
Not that anyone here is stupid enough to take anything from that article at face value.
Really come on now, who cares what he thinks about blogs? He's just mad because he gets no comments on myspace. >:p
I always find it amusing when people say that blogs are inaccurate. It's true, there's plenty of inaccurate information out there on blogs and websites in general. But who in their right mind thinks that they're getting better information from magazines or newspapers? All this stuff is written by humans. Some of it is accurate, some isn't. That doesn't change with the medium. If you think that "professional" publications do more fact checking, you're wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
When is somebody going to do to him what is being done to Judy Miller - namely, get rid of the fucking, lying, agenda-pushing asshole?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
wow, what a bunch of whining. power to the people I say. If you're FOS enough people will point it out on their blogs.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
What kind of moron takes what people put into a blog seriously? Especially things that are hear say. I will admit there are a lot of gulliable people out there, but I would hope a majority of people capable of reading a language and being able to sign up with an internet service provider is not a complete fool. The literate masses are the same people that vote, so I have to be optimistic otherwise I get depressed.
Perhaps a better question: What kind of moron thinks that people who take blogs seriously are of any concern? Apparently Forbes.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
For the record, i used to work for this company during the dot com boom when it was called Circle Group Internet. Let me say, I would not be the least bit surprised if all the accusation against Greg Halpern are completely true. In my opinion, this guy was a total scumbag, and I know about 20 former employees who share that sentiment. For example, I recall Greg assuring me that everyone who was with the company from the start would get a big fat check for $1,000,000.00 as soon as the stock went public. Which, throughout the 4 or 5 years i was there was perpetually just over the horizon. Greg Halpern is a gifted snake-oil salesman, and he deserves this comeupance.
Face it, if people can get good information directly from various websites, what do we need so-called professional journalists for? This is a threat to magazines like Forbes and the author of this reference article. And my guess is they realize this implicitly, and they don't have a solution other than the same solution Microsoft has tried to use against open source: fear, uncertainty and doubt. Or smear campaigns, which are essentially the same thing.
Certainly the potential for abuse is possible in what people say. But that is the price we pay for free speech and free press. The only other alternative is government regulation such as licensing of journalists which, of course, publications like Forbes could handle while private parties could not.
The presumption of this article is that people's weblogs cannot ever have anything of value. Also, like many others he chooses to pick on Groklaw and it's so-called pro-IBM and anti-SCO bias without regard to whether the comments on Groklaw are reasonable, accurate or true. The vitriolic tone of what the author wrote seems to indicate he has not read the material there, just taken the opinions of what people who don't like what is posted.
This seems to be the whole point of his article, his opinion is that people being able to directly expose their opinions to others without the filtering of some media organization is automatically bad. Which it is.
For the media organizations.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
I can see, without looking, hundreds of comments saying 'don't blame bloggers, OMG not all bloggers are bad', 'OMG this and that'.
You asshats, blame the stupid word 'blog'. Describing someone's actions by using a technology term, or even a vaguely defined methodology for online publishing is daft.
It is like a butcher, a chef and Jack the Ripper all being called 'Stainless Steelers'.
Of course, they all use their knives differently (except perhaps for jack and the butcher) and for different purposes.
So, mods, please, any 'OMG stop blog bashing' and 'How can you paint all bloggers with one brush!!1111' threads, please mod them down heavily, for ignorance, and because these people are probably in the smelly-with-floaty-bits part of the gene pool anyway, and don't listento reason.
This is you chance to show these asshats and the industry, and society, then painting such broad strokes is daft, and like programmers know, words are important. Read an obfuscated program anytime and find out. The word blogger is not appropriate in all cases, and common usage has become 'someone who posts on the web', yet bloggers still see themselves as bloggers...
Now the fact that 'BLOGGERS!1111' has and will be used as words to describe the simple ability for people to manipulate google, delic., technoshitty, slashdot and other high traffic sites to push their agenda - now I am using the broad term in more context - especially since bloggers love to hyperventalink to anything that can get them some socio-political flavour in their blog.
So if you have written a post that shows that you cannot understand the reason why 'bloggers' is written to describe how easy it is for people to defame companies to the end of financial fraud, and the news site shows how lovely journalists (oooh a word that - wait for it, broad term approaching - bloggers hate...) can vilify the bloggers and expose their evil deeds, and heap back the western nations love on the corporate evil empires (or a start-up company trying to make its way) then stop and smell the trendy coffee you know doubt drink and blog about.
Bloggers are to blame, you know the ones I mean. One of my previous posts discusses how such a word, its connotations and misuse will shape US law, and eventually give people who post online information as a 'blog' less rights than those who just post information. Because the world is that crazy.
please type the word in this image: reason
random letters - if you are visually impaired, please email us at pater@slashdot.org
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
I have found great value in bloggers like Bruce Schneier and Security Monkey, and I think to paint them all with one brush is useless. There are some scumbag bloggers that are out for attention and revenge - but if we wish them to go away, aren't we taking away from the purpose of blogging?
Something to think about.
It is quite obvious to me and many others that Frobes and Daniel Lyons are trolling for ad impressions.
Please do not give them the satisfaction. By going and visiting their site you are only encouraging them.
Many people have tried to reason with Daniel Lyons. It is obvious to most people that he does not listen to reason.
So please, pretty please. With cherry on top. Let us all ignore Forbes and Daniel Lyons and his kind. Thanks.
It's Freedom of Speech. Get over it.
Years ago people would get up on a soap box and just talk to whoever would listen and engage in debates. You can do a similar thing in London even today at Hyde Park corner.
People will express their opinions on Blogs and that is just a fact of life. If they want to bash Micro$oft, they are as free to do so on a blog as they would be on the street corner.
RebateFX.com - Spread rebates for Forex traders
We do it all the time. How else do you think we'll make anything better for the future ?
So, personally, I would not have any problem with such a blog.
If writing such a blog, I would do my best to make sure it was not libellous or slanderous; and I would not take money from anyone to write such a blog; 'free speech' is very different from 'commercial speech'.
Honestly held personal opinions, carefully presented and argued, are fine by me. Especially if they let me make an honest and careful reply of whatever my opinion might be.
I'm glad everyone is not the same, that everyone holds their own opinions. That's what makes the world an interesting place to live in.
hammered by bloggers; so have CBS, CNN and ABC News
That's why I get all my news from FOX!
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
One underlying assumption of the article is that blogs are highly influential in destroying companies' reputations b/c blog readers blindly trust the blogs they read. This is probably true in some cases, but untrue in many. However, I have to wonder if businesses would even face this problem if they had spent the past 50 years focusing their hiring efforts, training, and educational lobbying on critical thinkers instead of on worker drones. I can't help but think that this may be a symptom of a larger problem with America's education system, in which both businesses and their politicians are involved.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
Since when do they make Microshit fantards moderate around here?
Tech Public Policy stuff
Well, since you (obviously) didn't reply, and given that you stupidly decided to call my bluff, here you go.
Of course I remembered it because I replied and recommended you seek professional help. My advice stands.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
I guess free speech, sucks, eh?
>>You think every time groklaw mentions Forbes, Forbes smeared someone?
>Do you? The Original Poster never said that. Why not look at Lyons' articles and see if he did smear someone or not?
Hey, don't pick a bone with me. The original poster put a link which searches for Forbes on groklaw up there with the title "smear campaigns". I didn't understand it, I asked for clarification. I didn't put in my thoughts for his, I asked what his thoughts were.
Apparently you agree with me (at least somewhat), so I ask again, why did the OP put in a link to a search of groklaw for the word "Forbes" with the title "smear campaigns" unless he feels every time groklaw mentions Forbes it is a smear?
>What do you call a mistake that is published in a national magazine? "Not an attack >in this case"? What do you call something that is obviously incorrect and should >never have been stated in public? An innocent slip? What if it's a pattern and not a >rare event?
I didn't say an innocent slip. But it seemed more (in this case) like a mistake than a personal attack. For starters, it wasn't even all that personal.
I am disappointed you would jump down my throat for asking for a clarification from a poster.
I did read some of what Daniel Lyons has written. He's a very negative person. But apparently it's okay to be negative about Lotus Notes (which is is, correctly). Apparently it's okay to mention how IBM has had to resort to buying a company to compete with Open Source JBoss. But it's not okay to criticize even a single sector of the blogging community.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95